Rivals hit the wall in Chichester racketball championships

The withdrawal through injury of second seed and national over-50 champion Mike Phillips opened up the bottom half of the draw.

Junior player Miles Jenkins took full advantage and worked his way through to the final after a tight five-set victory against Andy Henshaw and a 3-0 semi-final win over Matt Swanson.

Awaiting him in the final was multiple club title holder, 2010 runner-up in the national men’s over-45 championships and No1 seed Wall, who had progressed to the final untroubled in all his matches.

The first game of the final was evenly contested with the youngster matching the veteran all the way.

A mistake, however, at 10-10 unsettled Jenkins and Wall took full advantage to snatch the game 12-10.

Thereafter, Jenkins’ game was beset with errors and Wall stamped his authority on the match with his more experienced play.

The outcome was never in doubt. He took the next two games 11-6, 11-4 to give him his fourth club racketball championship title.

There were quite a few withdrawals in the doubles but on paper it did leave a competitive final between Chris Street and Geof Stockbridge and Lewis and Tommy Strudwick, last season’s doubles plate winners.

The younger pair managed to keep their game in check, but not without the odd scare, coming back from losing the first game to run out 3-1 winners for their first club championship title.

In the singles plate event, for first-round losers, David Richardson proved too strong for Neil Burley, winning in straight sets.